Apple fixes data bug stranding Aussies, but what about the rest of us?

The location issue was reportedly due to third-party data used in Maps.

Less than a day after Australian police issued a warning that drivers should avoid using iOS 6's new Maps app, Apple has fixed the error that stranded drivers in a national park. According to a report in The Register, the data error was reportedly due to a confusing entry in the Australian Gazetteer, which is considered an "authoritative" list of more than 300,000 place names and coordinates. That entry placed the town of Mildura in both its actual city location and the place where the motorists ended up. Apple had incorporated that data source into Maps, which is what led to further confusion.

iOS 6 Maps had put the town of Mildura about 70km away from its actual location into the middle of Murray Sunset National Park, with some drivers ending up stranded in the middle the nature preserve on a hot summer day with nary a cell signal to be found. Victoria police eventually issued a warning to the public to "be careful when relying on the mapping system" on iOS 6 after having rescued at least four of the lost motorists. Because of the police warning, the issue was quick to gain press coverage, further embarrassing Apple over its already shaky reputation with the new version of Maps.

To Apple's credit, the fix came quickly for those Australian drivers looking for Mildura. But what about the other motorists around the globe who have ended up stranded in odd places with much less press coverage? I wrote in my original iOS 6 review that the new Maps dumped me off in the middle of a country highway in Wisconsin while I was on my way to a destination that was at least 10 miles away. Apple has yet to fix that problem. Since that review went up in September, I've received numerous e-mails and tweets from Ars readers claiming similar experiences with Maps in various parts of the world.

The "fault" for these incorrect locations may be due to third-party data, but Apple has chosen to put that data in front of users in a high-profile manner. As Red Sweater Software's Daniel Jalkut pointed out on Twitter, for all the problems Apple might have run into while working with Google on Maps, Google's data was nothing to sneeze at. Apple has serious challenges ahead if it wants to recover its reputation with Maps, and we may end up hearing more stories like the one about lost motorists in Mildura as more users get on board with the iPhone.

I think you are missing a fairly significant detail, the point Apple pointed to is the center for the Mildura City Rural governance area. Now if the database provided by the Gazetteer makes no distinction between real points and geographic centers of administrative areas, I can see a whole lot of work ahead for Apple to sort out what is what.

Software development paradigm that Apple seemingly has:1.) Development in absolute secrecy 2.) Release beta to paid developers (and non-developers who want to pay $99 / year to get beta versions)3.) Fix the bugs the paid developers (and the others mentioned above) happen to notice 4.) Release to public

I still can't countenance people who will blindly follow a map route without giving the entire route a look to ensure that the directions actually get them where they want to go. In these cases, where people end up in the middle of a wilderness area, common sense should kick in before a car runs out of gas and they end up stranded for 24 hours.

"The location issue was reportedly due to third-party data used in Maps."

Of course it was. All of the Apple Maps errors are due to third-party maps data, because it's based exclusively on exactly that. I don't understand why this is treated in the media as an exception. Yes, it's still questionable to release the Maps app in this state, and there are other letdowns, such as the lack of public transport information. But the maps errors are always due to third-party material, aren't they?

I still can't countenance people who will blindly follow a map route without giving the entire route a look to ensure that the directions actually get them where they want to go. In these cases, where people end up in the middle of a wilderness area, common sense should kick in before a car runs out of gas and they end up stranded for 24 hours.

Maps services, providing new Darwin Award fodder.

I have this problem with all mapping services - Google Maps, Mapquest, Bing Maps, etc. Sometimes, you ask it where something is, and you get an answer that you know isn't right, or you get directions that are just plain wrong. It's a consequence of having a massive, complex data set and allowing users to query freely against it. Being right 99.999% of the time on such a thing is an impressive feat, but with millions of users, that 0.001% happens regularly.

Like any technology, it's great when it works and annoying when it doesn't.

In my own individual experience, the last time I tried to get help form Google Maps, it sent me on a wild goose chase 15 miles from my hotel. Of course, being Seattle, you would think the data would be good by now, after 15 years at it.

I have yet to be steered wrong by Apple's maps app. Though living in Southern California might have something to do with that.

All you complainers about how bad Apple's maps app is, you're all probably too young to remember when Google maps was first out. Many, many times I got bad maps from them and I would turn to MapQuest, and get better maps.

"What do we want?!?""Fixed Maps!!!""When do we want it?!?""As soon as we get back from wherever it is we are!!!"

I've reported a few issues and not had them fixed (a non-mapped park in Florida, odd results when trying to find addresses in Manhattan) so I'm wondering if the only reason this got fixed was because of the publicity. Seriously though-how is TomTom not up on this either? Or is it that the application is not sending correct details so the search comes back with bad data? And wasn't OpenMaps part of this? If we fix this on OpenMaps will that resolve the issue?

While it is true that Apple Maps is nearly cathastrophic (or, at least, it was the first days after introduction), I wonder if nobody else has found mistakes in all other navigators. Tom Tom and Google have indicated the wrong route several times to me, and Google often shows place names that I though had been forgiven years ago.

I wouldn't want the unlucky people rescued by the Australian police will have to be saved again next time, because they trusted some other commercial mapping system before leaving for a trip in the desert.

I'm not excusing Apple (or Navteq). They are to blame for whatever data even if they outsource it from a 3rd party.

However, from user's point of view, we all have to take responsibility for our safety. I always do "two factor authentication" of routes when I go on a non-trivial/long trip. Typically, my GPS (Navteq data) and Google maps.

I still can't countenance people who will blindly follow a map route without giving the entire route a look ...

I have this problem with all mapping services - Google Maps, Mapquest, Bing Maps, etc. Sometimes, you ask it where something is, and you get an answer that you know isn't right...

Agreed -- and I'm pretty sure that all of these online map offerings carry some type of a disclaimer; as an example, Mapquest's disclaimer on their web-based driving directions reads as follows:

Use of directions and maps is subject to the MapQuest Terms of Use. We make no guarantee of the accuracy of their content, road conditions or route usability. You assume all risk of use.

Personally, I think that the root of the problem is actually twofold: These warnings are typically less visible in today's mobile apps due to the obvious screen size constraints, and therefore, some users naturally allow themselves to forget that the warnings still apply. "Out of sight, out of mind," as they say.

Which leads us by necessity to the common sense test: Does the lemming get to blame it's cell phone, if the cell phone tells it to drive off of a cliff, and the lemming does so?

In my own individual experience, the last time I tried to get help form Google Maps, it sent me on a wild goose chase 15 miles from my hotel. Of course, being Seattle, you would think the data would be good by now, after 15 years at it.

I have yet to be steered wrong by Apple's maps app. Though living in Southern California might have something to do with that.

All you complainers about how bad Apple's maps app is, you're all probably too young to remember when Google maps was first out. Many, many times I got bad maps from them and I would turn to MapQuest, and get better maps.

Ha! Just as I mentioned in my comment on the original post: "It's a minor point, but is this just a bad route/map issue or problem with the GPS location for the town being "wrong" on the service and the map is just going by that?"

Seeing as that comment has no up/down votes, but other pages that followed, it leads me to ask an unrelated question:

Dear Ars,

Is there some kind of natural phenomenon that correlates "early voting" on the first page or so of comments with a down-turn in voting as people stop going thru them all and just post their own? It seems like this is more prevalent in "hot" articles where the comment count quickly reaches triple digits.

Also, if true, what would this be called? Peer Review Degradation? Comment Hysteresis?

Google Maps is excellent, but contains many errors as well. For years now, the address of the Air Traffic Control tower in my city maps five miles north of the airport using Google. I'm guessing that no one has reported the problem (including myself).

That's far from the only problem I've had, but still I recognize that Google has more information than Apple.

When traveling to a remote location however, I don't rely on a simplistic map view. I use terrain and satellite views as well. It's pretty obvious when features such as towns or roads have been misplaced.

Currently an Android owner, and up until iOS 6 I was thinking about making my next phone an iPhone. But the new Maps is a total deal-breaker. Have they added public transit directions yet? That's just pathetic, Apple.

Currently an Android owner, and up until iOS 6 I was thinking about making my next phone an iPhone. But the new Maps is a total deal-breaker. Have they added public transit directions yet? That's just pathetic, Apple.

Though all maps have errors - Apple maps is just plain bad... anyone who can actually explain otherwise I would like to hear it... Forget the map data, just the map representations are just plain bad. Apple maps look like a crayon drawing my 5 year old would make...

Currently an Android owner, and up until iOS 6 I was thinking about making my next phone an iPhone. But the new Maps is a total deal-breaker. Have they added public transit directions yet? That's just pathetic, Apple.

No traffic indications in most cities? That's just pathetic, Google.

?Not sure what you are talking about...

EDIT:in the US traffic indication is quite good.. even from a high level view:

Just got back from India, where the majority of the people count on google maps to get around (the streets there are so confusing that cab drivers regularly stop and get phone directions for 5 minutes from the proprietors of the place they are going).

Apple maps is absolutely screwed there (this is a country of 1 billion people and a great telecommunications industry). It's missing major highways and can't find directions between two points on the same street or landmarks, like the taj mahal.

Fortunately, they have a great 3G data service that you can tether from Airtel, so I just tethered my iPhone to my nexus 7 and used google maps on that to get around. Except for one hotel, it was flawless, performing better than locals for getting around.

Based on the articles, it sounds like people were entering in just the name of the city, hitting 'Start' and blindly following the turn-by-turn directions. Do people really navigate to unfamiliar cities this way? What did they plan to do once they got to this predetermined point in a city they didn't know?

I'm new to turn-by-turn navigation but I'm really having a hard time picturing this. Being unfamiliar with something as large as a city I'd want to at least see what route I'm going to take or in a map see what landmarks I might pass. At the very least I'd want to zoom in on my endpoint to get an idea of what the hell I'd do when I get there. If you follow the Register link you'll see the point looks clearly rural in satellite view, as I'm sure it does in standard view too.

Am I missing something, or was I just overly optimistic assuming people want to have an idea where they will end up when going somewhere new?

Currently an Android owner, and up until iOS 6 I was thinking about making my next phone an iPhone. But the new Maps is a total deal-breaker. Have they added public transit directions yet? That's just pathetic, Apple.

No traffic indications in most cities? That's just pathetic, Google.

?Not sure what you are talking about...

Google only does major cities. Maybe in the States they have more coverage, but the rest of the world is out of luck. iOS maps has way more coverage.

And that's in addition to the great turn-by-turn driving directions from the middle of the continent to the coast.

I still can't countenance people who will blindly follow a map route without giving the entire route a look to ensure that the directions actually get them where they want to go. In these cases, where people end up in the middle of a wilderness area, common sense should kick in before a car runs out of gas and they end up stranded for 24 hours.

Maps services, providing new Darwin Award fodder.

Driving around on fumes is kinda weird no matter what the situation is.

But AFAIK, towns being in the middle of nowhere is kinda the norm for Australia, so how should people realise that they were in the wrong middle of nowhere, as opposed to the correct nowhere?

Google Maps is excellent, but contains many errors as well. For years now, the address of the Air Traffic Control tower in my city maps five miles north of the airport using Google. I'm guessing that no one has reported the problem (including myself).[snip]

I've reported perhaps a dozen errors in Google Maps; all have been fixed. (They were all minor errors, and took several weeks to get fixed, but they did get fixed.)

In my own individual experience, the last time I tried to get help form Google Maps, it sent me on a wild goose chase 15 miles from my hotel. Of course, being Seattle, you would think the data would be good by now, after 15 years at it.

I have yet to be steered wrong by Apple's maps app. Though living in Southern California might have something to do with that.

All you complainers about how bad Apple's maps app is, you're all probably too young to remember when Google maps was first out. Many, many times I got bad maps from them and I would turn to MapQuest, and get better maps.

Who's better now?

Guess who will be better in five years?

Time doesn't make things better, it's the resource that Google put in that make them the best mapping service out there. I don't see Apple hire an army of folks driving up and down the streets to collect mapping data. At this point Apple is on the mercy of crowd sourcing and Tomtom, and just don't see how they can get better quick, and being Apple, they don't have five years, they need to get it fixed quick or strike a deal with Google.

how should people realise that they were in the wrong middle of nowhere, as opposed to the correct nowhere?

Step one: enter destination into GPS/mapping software of choice

Step two: Look at destination indicated on map to ensure that it is where you actually want to go

I'm not apologizing for Apple in any way, here. No one should blindly trust any direction service. My pops used to get Triptics from AAA n the pre-GPS days, and he taught me to always verify that, if nothing else, the finish line indicated was the finish line you actually wanted. He also taught me to read a map and have a general sense of direction, which are both invaluable skills.

"The location issue was reportedly due to third-party data used in Maps."

Of course it was. All of the Apple Maps errors are due to third-party maps data, because it's based exclusively on exactly that. I don't understand why this is treated in the media as an exception. Yes, it's still questionable to release the Maps app in this state, and there are other letdowns, such as the lack of public transport information. But the maps errors are always due to third-party material, aren't they?

Yes, but it *is* Apple's fault to choose those 3rd party material as their source. What they should have done is instead of removing Google Maps, they should have released a beta "Apple Maps" saying something like "please help us hone in our maps application and report if there are any incorrect data". But no, Apple is too smug for that, they had to choose the "burn the ships" option and say "We have delivered the bestest Maps app you have ever seen". I feel pitty for them.

"The location issue was reportedly due to third-party data used in Maps."

Of course it was. All of the Apple Maps errors are due to third-party maps data, because it's based exclusively on exactly that. I don't understand why this is treated in the media as an exception. Yes, it's still questionable to release the Maps app in this state, and there are other letdowns, such as the lack of public transport information. But the maps errors are always due to third-party material, aren't they?

Yes, but it *is* Apple's fault to choose those 3rd party material as their source. What they should have done is instead of removing Google Maps, they should have released a beta "Apple Maps" saying something like "please help us hone in our maps application and report if there are any incorrect data". But no, Apple is too smug for that, they had to choose the "burn the ships" option and say "We have delivered the bestest Maps app you have ever seen". I feel pitty for them.

I don't. They thought they knew better than EVERYONE and decided to 'stick it' to Google and drop their maps before they even had to (which is especially funny given the new new API would have let them do many of the things that were missing)

I'm not an Apple lover or hater (completely agnostic on the issue) but I think Apple needs to spend some serious money and resources on fixing this. It's driving Apple lovers away from their Apple devices.

Maps and location services are a big draw on smartphones and pads these days, particularly phones. I personally know iPhone users who are so pissed off about this that they're actively looking at Android phones.

This is going to affect their reputation for quality, seamless devices and, ultimately, their bottom line.It really is worth many millions in sales to Apple.

It's time to spend the money to fix it. Those lost customers will stay with other OEMs after they've left, in many cases. It's lost customer loyalty.

Currently an Android owner, and up until iOS 6 I was thinking about making my next phone an iPhone. But the new Maps is a total deal-breaker. Have they added public transit directions yet? That's just pathetic, Apple.

No traffic indications in most cities? That's just pathetic, Google.

?Not sure what you are talking about...

Google only does major cities. Maybe in the States they have more coverage, but the rest of the world is out of luck. iOS maps has way more coverage.

And that's in addition to the great turn-by-turn driving directions from the middle of the continent to the coast.

Google relies on cities to supply them with traffic data, any city without the infrastructure to do so would be out of luck. iOS does not have "way more coverage", I have tried them both with my Sg3 and my wife 4S.

"The location issue was reportedly due to third-party data used in Maps."

Of course it was. All of the Apple Maps errors are due to third-party maps data, because it's based exclusively on exactly that. I don't understand why this is treated in the media as an exception. Yes, it's still questionable to release the Maps app in this state, and there are other letdowns, such as the lack of public transport information. But the maps errors are always due to third-party material, aren't they?

We don't know, is it bad data or bad data interpretation? But it doesn't matter, people pay Apple for their products not "third party" so it's Apple responsibility to fix it. Just imagine your team makes a mistake and you got called into the office to talk to your boss about it, should you blame someone else or take full responsibility for it?